Are you new to maintaining your own bike? Do you want to be more self-sufficient, but are worried you’ll mess up? That’s natural enough, but there’s nothing very mysterious about working on bikes. Just as with all manual skills, you learn by doing, and for a greenhorn bike mechanic, changing or installing pedals is a good way to become familiar with working on a bike.

If you buy a new bike by mail order, chances are that it’s shipped with the pedals separately packed to reduce the dimensions of the bike box. Your new bike might not even have pedals. Many quality bikes leave it up to the purchaser to decide on which pedals to install. Such was the case with my Surly Long Haul Trucker.

Most cyclists swap pedals at one time or other, and I’m no exception. I changed the pedals on my LHT because my first set turned out to be too narrow for my tastes. I wanted wider touring pedals, and making the change took me no longer than a few minutes. (Read about the pedals I chose in “Surly Long Haul Trucker—There are Many Like it but This One’s MINE.” )

 

 
Your Workspace  If you’re new to working on bikes, it will take a bit longer than a couple minutes to put on new pedals or change them. Set aside enough time to do the work so you won’t feel rushed. If you don’t have a dedicated shop space, pick somewhere that allows some elbow room and good light. You don’t need an entire garage bay to do this job—the picture above of my vintage Schwinn Traveler on a bike stand in my office proves that. You WILL drop small parts, so be sure that the spot you choose lets you retrieve nuts and screws that love to fall through cracks and into drains. Lay out tools, rags, grease (I use petroleum jelly to grease pedal threads), and newspapers. If you have a bike stand that raises your bike and saves your back from stooping, all to the good, though loosening pedals is easier if the bike’s wheels are firmly on the ground. If you don’t have a stand, that’s no biggie, but without a kickstand you’ll have to brace the bike against a solid object to prevent it from falling.

What tools do you need? If it’s just a matter of screwing in pedals, then all you need is a pedal wrench, a crescent wrench, or an open-ended wrench that fits the pedal spindle. If you’re new to bike maintenance and think you’ll keep at it, you should acquire some specialty tools like this set:

 

 
I bought this kit from Nashbar a few years ago. but similar ones are still available from most of the major bicycling retailers. This kit doesn’t have everything you’ll need for working on bikes, but it does have many of the special tools for routine tasks. In the photo above, the red arrow points to a combination wrench—the open end is the pedal wrench and the other end is a crank bolt socket wrench (used in removing the crank arms—you’d need a crank arm extractor as well). To the left of the combo wrench is a crescent wrench. The yellow arrow points to a pair of cone wrenches. Don’t be confused and think these are for adjusting pedal cones. They’re for working on the cones in wheel hubs, and should not be used to tighten or loosen pedals.

Before going any further, review the cage pedal’s anatomy in the photo below. Clipless pedals are a bit more complex, but even their pedal threads and wrench flats are similar.

 

 
A note is in order here: pedal nomenclature is a bit confused. There are cage pedals, quill pedals, platforms, and others, and even the terms “clipless” and “clipable” can addle the sharpest brain. The important thing is to be sure that the pedals you’re going to install will fit your bike’s cranks. Most adult bikes these days use pedals that have 9/16″ spindles and 20 tpi threads. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, read Sheldon Brown on the subject.

 
Let’s get started. I’ll assume you’re swapping pedals, so we’ll begin with…

 
Removing Old Pedals  All that’s needed to remove old pedals is to break the grip the pedal has with the crank arm and unscrew the pedal. But there’s a catch. Right side and left side pedals don’t have the same threads. (By the way, when we speak of “right side” in reference to the bike, that means your right as if you were sitting on the bike. Mariners do it more clearly by referring to the starboard and port sides of boats.) I won’t go into why the threads differ because Sheldon Brown has a good explanation.

There’s another way to tell which pedal is which. Look at the wrench flats or the screw-end of the spindle. Pedals are might be stamped in one of these two places to indicate which is which. See examples below:

 

 
Fit the wrench over the wrench flats (make sure the wrench fits snugly over the flats). To LOOSEN pedals, rotate the wrench BACK toward the rear wheel. If you remember that loosening means rotating the wrench back, whichever pedal you’re working on, you’ll be fine. Conversely, to tighten pedals on the crank arms, rotate the wrench FORWARD toward the front wheel. Got it? No, you need something easy to remember? Try this:

 Toward forward tightens. Rear rotation removes.

 

Again. Whichever pedal it is, rotate the wrench forward toward the front wheel to tighten. Rotate the wrench rearward to remove the pedal.

The crank arm position is important when removing pedals, because as you try to break the pedal’s grip, the crank might want to rotate. So, to REMOVE the RIGHT pedal, stand on the right side of the bike and face it. Rotate the crank so right crank arm is in the 2 o’clock position. Place the wrench so the handle points back, more or less in the 10 o’clock position. Now push down on the handle. It might take some effort to break the pedal free, and when it happens, your hand could suddenly move downwards. Be aware of this and keep your fingers and knuckles away from the teeth of the crank or other objects that could chop off a hunk of skin. Once the grip’s broken, carefully rotate the pedal threads off the crank. Because the pedal spindle is most likely steel and many crank arms are softer alloy, you have to be especially careful not to strip the threads of the crank arm. If you DO strip the threads, at the very least you probably are facing a trip to a pro who might be able to use a chaser to re-dress the threads. At worst, you’ll have to buy a new crank, and that can be expensive.

To LOOSEN the LEFT pedal, mirror the procedure—place crank arm in the 10 o’clock position, with the pedal wrench handle angling back in the 2 o’clock position. Press down on the wrench handle, rotating the wrench toward the rear wheel. Break the grip, and then rotate the pedal spindle TOWARD THE REAR WHEEL (in other words, clockwise) with the wrench or your fingers until the pedal is separated from the crank.

Now that the pedals are removed from your bike, use a clean rag to wipe any grit and grease off the crank arms. If they’re very dirty, spray a solvent like WD-40 on the threads in the pedal hole, then wipe away all the grit and grime.

Once the cranks are cleaned, you can…

 
Install New Pedals  Inspect the new pedals to determine which is right and which is left. I like to lay them out on the work table with the right on the right side and the left to the left side, just to be sure I don’t get them mixed up. It’s a good idea to use pedal washers. These help prevent the pedal from grinding down into the crank arms as you ride your bike, and they help ease pedal removal in future.

 

 
The photo above shows a pedal washer in place, but it’s angled for illustration purposes. As the pedal is tightened onto the crank, it rests flat against the crank arm. As mentioned earlier, I use petroleum jelly on pedal threads. Be liberal—you’ll wipe excess off later.

With the pedal threads greased, carefully thread the spindle into the pedal hole on the crank arm. Be very careful not to cross-thread the spindle. It might take a few tries before you make the pedal threads “catch” in the pedal hole, but you’ll know it when it happens. Using your fingers, tighten the pedal onto the crank. Remember, tighten forward toward the front of the bike. When you’ve threaded the pedal onto the crank as far as you can go with finger strength, continue tightening with the wrench. Snug the pedal down well but don’t put all your strength into it. If you were very ham-handed about it, you might even crack the crank arm, and that would be a Very Bad Thing.

With one pedal in place, go around to the other side of the bike and repeat the procedure with the other pedal. To thread the pedal onto the crank, repeat after me: tighten forward toward the front of the bike. Done? Great! Wipe up any petroleum jelly that’s been squeezed out of the pedal hole, and you’re ready to ride. But now maybe you’ll want to…

 
Add Toe Clips  Do you NEED toe clips? Nope. But many cyclists prefer to ride with them, me included. They help keep your foot on the pedal when conditions are slippery, and they allow you to bring more power to bear because you can lift with each pedal stroke. The straps on clips don’t have to be cinched down in a death-grip. I like mine loose enough to hold my foot in place without being so tight that I can’t easily pull my foot back and out when making a quick stop.

Toe clips are attached to pedals with a pair of metal screws and nuts—you could use a lock nut or lock washer and regular nut. The photo below shows the back side of a plastic toe clip plate (you can get metal toe clips, too) that’s been removed from the pedal which I replaced with a newer one. The red lines indicate where screws would pass through pedal cage and toe clip plate. One screw is still in place on the clip.

 

 
Mate the toe clip to the holes on the pedal cage, run screws through just far enough to capture the threads on a lock nut, then hold the lock flush against the cage with an open-ended wrench (a size 10 is needed for this one). Use a screwdriver to tighten the screw snugly. I grease the screws with petroleum jelly. Here’s a photo of a toe clip’s screws and nuts tightened down fully:

 

 
The last thing to do is to thread the clip’s straps. Run them through slots on the ends of the pedal cages and through the arms of the pedal body, then up and through slots on top of the clips. The buckle should be adjustable when you’re on the bike, so align them so you can pull up on the strap end to tighten them. I like to tuck the strap’s end all the way through the buckle, as shown in the last photo on this page, but many prefer to run the strap through the buckle jaw and then leave the strap free so they can easily adjust it when underway. When threading the strap, give it a twist between the pedal body arms to help keep the straps in place once you’ve adjusted the buckle where you want it to be:

 

 
To test the fit, push the toes of your cycling shoes onto the pedal and into the toe clip. Give the straps a preliminary adjustment, and fine-tune later. Now, stand back and admire your handiwork. You’re done! Reward yourself with a ride.

 

 
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